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| -Obits- |
| Morgan Sparks, inventor of the first practical transistor |
| 2008-05-08 |
| Morgan Sparks, who led Sandia National Laboratories for nearly a decade and invented a device that has revolutionized almost every aspect of modern life, has died. Sparks died Saturday at his daughter's home in Fullerton, Calif., Sandia said Tuesday in a news release. He was 91. Sparks worked for 30 years at Bell Laboratories in New Jersey before taking over as director of Sandia in 1972. He served in the post until his retirement in 1981. Sandia and Bell labs officials said Sparks invented the first practical transistor, a semiconductor device that led to devices such as personal computers, cell phones and DVD players. Transistors work something like light switches, flipping on and off inside a chip to generate the ones and zeros that store and process information inside a computer. Sparks joined the Semiconductor Research Group at the New Jersey lab in 1948 just as three of the group's physicists — John Bardeen, Walter Brattain and William Shockley — were developing the first transistor for which they won the Nobel Prize, said Peter Benedict, a spokesman for Bell. The New Jersey lab is the research arm of Alcatel-Lucent. Sparks conducted materials science research with the group and worked with fellow team members Shockley and Gordon Teal to help develop the microwatt junction transistor in 1951... |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #4 Right up there with Norman Borlaug. These guys are up there with Bell and Edison. But does anybody know their names? |
| Posted by: Nimble Spemble 2008-05-08 19:08 |
| #3 Hail and farewell killer of supermarket valve checkers. |
| Posted by: George Smiley 2008-05-08 19:00 |
| #2 Thus passes some one who "made a difference". Rest is peace sir. You made the world a better place. |
| Posted by: N guard 2008-05-08 18:49 |
| #1 I am just barely old enough to remember what pre-transistor electronics were like. Thank you, sir, for making all our lives immensely better. Rest in peace. |
| Posted by: Mike 2008-05-08 13:34 |